In many industrial applications, chemical reagents and compositions are required to be supplied in a high purity state, and specialized packaging has been developed to ensure that the supplied material is maintained in a pure and suitable form, throughout the package fill, storage, transport, and dispensing operations.
In the fields of microelectronic device and display panel manufacturing, the need for suitable packaging is particularly compelling for a variety of liquids and liquid-containing compositions, as contaminants in the packaged material, and/or ingress of environmental contaminants to the contained material in the package, can adversely affect the microelectronic device and display panel products that are manufactured with such liquids or liquid-containing compositions, rendering the resulting products deficient or even useless for their intended use. Presence of bubbles in such liquids or liquid-containing compositions can have similar detrimental consequences.
As a result of these considerations, many types of high-purity packaging have been developed for liquids and liquid-containing compositions used in microelectronic device and display panel manufacturing, such as photoresists, etchants, chemical vapor deposition reagents, solvents, wafer and tool cleaning formulations, chemical mechanical polishing compositions, color filtering chemistries, overcoats, liquid crystal materials, etc.
One conventional type of packaging for high-purity materials includes a rigid, substantially rigid, or semi-rigid container (also known as an overpack) containing a liquid or liquid-based composition in a flexible liner or bag that is secured in position in the overpack by retaining structure such as a lid or cover. Such packaging is commonly referred to as “bag-in-can” (BIC), “bag-in-bottle” (BIB) and “bag-in-drum” (BID) packaging. Packaging of such general type is commercially available (e.g., under the trademark NOWPak®) from Advanced Technology Materials, Inc. (Danbury, Conn., USA).
In one embodiment, a liner comprises a flexible material, and the surrounding (e.g., overpack) container comprises a wall material that is substantially more rigid than said flexible material. Rigid or semi-rigid containers of the packaging may be formed (for example) of high-density polyethylene, or other polymer or metal, and the liner may be provided as a pre-cleaned, sterile collapsible bag of a polymeric film material, such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), low-density polyethylene, medium-density polyethylene, PTFE-based laminates, polyamide, polyester, polyurethane, or the like, selected to be inert to the material (e.g., liquid) to be contained in the liner. Multilayer laminates comprising any of the foregoing materials may be used. Examples of liners comprising multi-layer laminates are disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0212071 A1, owned by the assignee of the present application, and which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety except for express definitions contained therein. Exemplary materials of construction of a liner further include: metalized films, foils, polymers/copolymers, laminates, extrusions, co-extrusions, and blown and cast films.
In use of liner-based packaging to dispense liquids and liquid-based compositions, a liquid or liquid-containing composition is commonly dispensed from the liner by connecting a dispensing assembly including a dip tube or short probe to a port of the liner, with the dip tube being immersed in the contained liquid. Fluid (e.g., gas) pressure is applied to the exterior surface of the liner (i.e., in the space between the liner and a surrounding container) to progressively collapse the liner and thereby force liquid through the dispensing assembly for discharge to associated flow circuitry to flow to an end-use tool or site. Use of a liner containing a liquid to be dispensed prevents direct contact with pressurized gas arranged to exert pressure against the liner, which may eliminate or substantially reduce dissolution of gas into liquid chemical to be dispensed to a point of use.
Certain liquids used in fabrication of electronic devices and/or display devices embody high viscosities (e.g., in a range of 250-35,000 centipoises or more), with examples of such liquids including optically clear resin (“OCR”) materials and other useful resins such as polyimides (which may be used as protective overcoats, interlayer dielectrics, or passivation layers in microelectronic applications).
A traditional method of dispensing high viscosity process liquids has involved use of special transfer pumps and large diameter tubing. Extraction of liquid from supply containers using pumps limits piping configuration flexibility due to the desirability of positioning pumps below the level of supply containers to meet pump suction head requirements. Use of pumps may also significantly agitate liquids and lead to detrimental bubble formation.
It would be desirable to provide systems and methods for pressure dispensing of ultra-pure liquid-containing materials while overcoming various limitations associated with conventional apparatuses. The present disclosure relates to fluid and dispensing systems and methods that overcome various issues present in conventional systems.